Dear Hildegaard

Busted fingers and the names we call ourselves

Dear Hildegaard,

Today I smashed my finger between two bricks while trying to find you a worm. I called myself some names. I keep calling myself names lately because I also bumped my head - hard - on the freezer door. And last month, as you remember, I sliced my knee on that stake in the garden, and the blood was everywhere. You looked at me in wonder, not knowing what to make of all the red.

I’m trying to type this with only a few good fingers, and I’m feeling a little bruised, ego-wise, but it’s a good time to stop and think about how I want you to hear me talk about myself. And it doesn’t include the word idiot. 

How we talk about ourselves matters. It matters because, in the same way I want you to stand up for that girl being teased in class, we too bear the image of God. Dignity is not just for others. And this isn’t selfish. It’s honoring. The same God who created her, created you. Created me. And we must treat ourselves as beloved, because that is who we are. My friend, Elyse Fitzpatrick, whose books I will pass on to you one day, has been reminding me of this truth as I read through her new manuscript. We are beloved. Beloved is who we are. 

And yet, it can be a fight. 

One time, I sat across from a woman whose husband had been verbally abusing her for years. She began to believe that the names he called her and the things he accused her of were the truth. So much so that she kept interrupting herself in the middle her own sentences to say: “He’s probably right.” Every time she started to gain courage, she knocked herself back down. Because that’s what she was used to. And if you ever find yourself around someone who makes you feel like knocking yourself down before they can do it for you, please don’t stay. You can say a prayer for that person as you walk away, but walk away. You are of more value than many sparrows. 

I asked her: “What would you say to your daughter if she was being treated this way?”

“I would tell her to leave,” she said immediately. 

“You, too,” I told her, “are an image bearer of God. Worth protecting. Worth honoring with dignity. You do not have to accept abuse.” 

But sometimes the abuse comes from within. We put ourselves down before someone else can. We apologize, not because we have sinned, but because we want to pacify a person we fear. We downplay our strengths, assuming that pride is confidence, when it’s not. Pride is thinking about yourself - positively or negatively - more than you think about anyone else. More than you think about God. 

Pastor and theologian, Tim Keller, just passed away from pancreatic cancer. I will pass his books on to you as well - that beloved man. A while back, he wrote a little book called The Freedom of Self-Forgetfulness that has shaped me. He said: “The natural condition of the human ego” is “empty, painful, busy and fragile.” Humility is not putting ourselves down, calling ourselves names, or apologizing to pacify someone. Humility is seeing ourselves the way Jesus sees us: as needy and beloved. We need a conviction of both, or else it is not true humility. 

I love you. Every day, I see you discover new things and I watch you raise your eyebrows at the world. Today, when I said “choose to do the right thing, Hilde,” you did. Yesterday you didn’t. And that is who we are. Needy and beloved. Lost and found. Of more value than lilies and birds and sand and the names that we call ourselves when we mess up. 

Cover image by Rachel Joy Welcher, All Rights Reserved.